A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
by Tannhaeuser
Summary: This is a Fan-fic crossover between the 1983 “Dungeons & Dragons” cartoon and the 1944 song “I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” by Fred Heatherton. You know, since I first heard of the concept of the “song-fic” I’ve wanted to try my hand at one.
1. Chapter 1

You know, since I first heard of the concept of the "song-fic" I've wanted to try my hand at one. Please be gentle with me. In keeping with tradition, I've chosen a song that will inspire the reader with the appropriate amount of Angst and Tortured Emotion.

**I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts — **

"Look!" snapped Eric, "I don't care what that little creep said! This Countess Cue-balla — "

"That's Querella, Eric…"

" — Whatever — she hates Venger's guts, and would send us home just to spite him. If Dungeon Master can't get us out of here, I say we ask somebody with some _real_ magic!"

"I say we should ask someone with some real _brains_ — but I guess that leaves you out, Eric."

"Ha-ha. Well, you can stay in this crazy world if you want to, Little Miss Acrobat — but I'm sure the rest of us wanna get home sometime. C'mon, Sheila, Bobby!" he said, with that little tremolo in his voice that was sometimes so effective, "Don't you wanna see your mom and dad again? To sleep in a bed, and eat hot dogs and pizza again? To be back to normal?"

"Ohhh…oh, Bobby...!" Sheila clung to her little brother, as her eyes filled. Uni nuzzled her hand, mewling softly.

"Errr-IC!"

"Just ignore the Stick-lady," continued the Cavalier, loftily. "C'mon Presto, what do YOU say?"

"Uhh, gee, I dunno, Eric… I mean, we're all awfully tired of this place, and I miss home as much as any one — but if this Countess Querella IS a sorceress, maybe Dungeon Master is right, and she IS too dangerous."

"Presto, he admitted that she's nine years old. How tough can she be?" He grimaced in the offensive manner of one to whom all human motives are an open book. "The old boy probably just doesn't want some young up-and-coming sorceress to take over his business!"

"Well, I … I don't know. Hank? What do you say?"

Five pairs of anxious eyes turned toward him, hanging on his decision. Yet Hank remained silent. What if he made the decision — and it was the wrong one? Hank was inclined to be cautious — they were all just kids, really, and he had to be the grown-up — but he was really just a kid himself. What if this really was their chance of getting home — and he made them miss it? What if Dungeon Master had just tricked him, had been toying with them all along? What if…?

"Oh, Hank," whispered Sheila, "I want to go _home_."

"Okay," he said, slowly. "We'll put it to a vote. If we tie, or if the vote is 'no,' we wait for Dungeon Master to find a way home for us. If the vote is 'yes,' we ask the Countess. Diana?"

"I vote 'no.' Dungeon Master must have had a good reason for warning us against her."

"Eric?"

"'Yes' — of course. If he knows so much, how come he hasn't come up with a way to send us home?"

"Sheila?"

"Oh, Hank — it's a chance, isn't it? And how many chances are we going to get? I vote 'Yes.'"

"Presto?

"Well, I, uh … I dunno, Hank…"

"Ah, c'mon, Presto!"

"Gee, Eric…" The magician hung miserably between the two elder boys, and then, with a plunge: "I'm sorry, Eric. I don't think we should risk it. I vote 'no.' "

"Wimp," spat Eric, bitterly.

"Bobby?"

"Aw, Hank, I'm too young to vote!"

"Not in _this_ democracy, pal," smiled the ranger. "Everyone gets a voice here."

"Myeeaahh," said Uni.

"Well … then — if Sheila says we ought to go, we'll go. I vote 'yes.' "

"That makes it your decision, Hank," spoke Eric slowly — with, perhaps, a certain satisfaction. "Do we stay, or do we go?"

Hank was silent, one minute — three minutes — five. Then: "We go. I vote, 'Yes.' "

"Hurray!" whooped Eric, and actually scooped Bobby up and swung him around in the air, while Sheila hugged a confused Presto. Hank bowed his head and turned away.

A slim arm wrapped itself around his shoulders. He looked up.

"I'm sorry, Diana. I know that — "

"Hey — don't even say it. I know how hard that was for you, and no matter what happens, I support your decision, Hank. 'Kay?"

He nodded, once or twice, gulping. "Thanks."


	2. Chapter 2

**Here they are, all standing in a row.**

There it was — Malacastra, the fortress of Countess Querella, cut out of the face of a black mountain, eaten out by caves and mines and passages. A high, black wall, and on the wall, a row of spikes, and on the spikes —

"Ahhhhh, Eric! Eric! Look at that! Look at those! I mean, look up there!"

"Myyiiiihhh!" yelped Uni, and hid trembling behind Bobby.

"N-n-n-n-now-now-now-now, P-p-p-presto…they're probably not REAL heads! Sh-she probably just f-forgot to take down her Halloween decorations!"

"Those are no Halloween decorations, Eric," said Hank, sternly. "Diana, you were right. I think we'd better make tracks out of here before — "

"HOLD!" rang out a voice like glass broken on steel. "Who dares trespass on our lands of Malacastra?!"

Looking up, they saw standing in the midst of the rotting heads of humans, and orcs, and dwarfs, and lizardmen, and elves, a young girl, clad in rich royal robes of azure and violet. In stature she seemed about Bobby's age, and exceptionally well-formed, with thick sable-brown hair, china complexion, and eyes like pale moonstones — but there was something hard about her, something inexorable and unforgiving.

"If you're Countess Querella," shouted Hank, "we came to ask you a favor!"

"To ask a favor, indeed! You'll find I'll give you more than you asked for. Forward, my flind warriors! Cast the intruders into the lair of the vilstraks!"

A troop of large humanoids, with cat- or bear-like heads, began to pour out of various caves and portals in the surrounding rocks. Quickly they formed a semicircle around the young ones, and drew steadily nearer, spinning ominous looking steel bars.

Presto turned to Eric. "You know, Eric," he hissed, "just sometimes I think it might be better to be a wimp, than to be such a simp!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Big ones! Small ones! Some as big as your head!**

"No time for arguments now!" shouted Hank. "You guys try to make it up to that big cave up there, while Diana and I cover you. Go for it!" With energy bolts blazing, Hank fired over and over again just in front of the oncoming ranks of beast-men. One or two of these had hurled their steel bars, but the Acrobat had deftly caught these on her staff and sent them boomeranging back.

The flind, Hank guessed, were naturally cautious creatures. Despite a large superiority in numbers, the seemed in no hurry to cast the Young Ones anywhere, preferring instead a measured, tramping advance toward the fleeing humans. Steady, steady, he told himself. Plenty of time.

"Hank! Hank! C'mon! There's a big rock up here we can use to shut the door behind us!"

One last arrow then — and — "C'mon, Diana! Make for the cave!" No need to say it twice. There were both in the cave, shoving the great boulder across its entrance before the flind had advanced a yard.

"Well," Hank sighed, sinking to the ground, "I guess we're safe for a while. But let me tell you, Cavalier –"

He broke off, noticing that Eric was flushed and pointing toward the back of the cave. He was on his feet in a moment, bow drawn. "What is it, Eric?"

But the Cavalier only answered, "G-guk!" and pointed feebly.

Hank drew an arrow to light the dark passage, and looked — and whistled.

DIAMONDS! Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and sapphires… heaps and heaps of gems, thousands of them. The floor was strewn with them like a precious sand; heaped with them like cairns; there were some great shining stones as huge as baseballs, all gleaming in the light of his energy bolt like a thousand Aladdin's lamps!

"We're rich," said Eric, in a curious, flat voice. "Richer than my dad. Richer than Trump. Richer than the Government. Richer than anyone — we're all of us richer than anyone who ever lived." A strange light flickered in his eyes.

"Yeah — well, I'd trade all this stuff just for a way out of this cave," growled Bobby.

"Myyyeaahhh!"

"Don't you understand?!" shrieked Eric. "With this stuff, we can buy and sell that little witch down there in the castle! We could probably buy out Venger! There's nothing that we can't have!"

"Wait a minute," said Sheila. "If all this stuff is just lying here — why doesn't the Countess just come and pick it up herself?"

"Maybe it already _is_ hers?" answered Diana. "Maybe this cave is her treasure vault!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" snapped Eric. "Whoever heard of a vault left open and unguarded?"

As if in answer, a grating, moaning sound echoed throughout the cave, together with an odd sort of clattering, like an unbreakable china dish dropped on a tile floor.

"Now I see," said Hank. "We thought the flind were going to _throw_ us into the lair of the vilstraks. We never thought that they would just stand back and watch us throw ourselves in. Ten to one that boulder we used to block the entrance has been sealed from the outside." He shoved against it. He was right.

"What? What are you talking about — lair of the vilstraks? What the heck is a vilstrak?"

"Uh-uh-uh-uh — offhand, Eric, I'd say, that is!" yammered Presto.

Merging out of the fabric of the stone itself, the weird stone creature advanced. It looked oddly like that toy called the Rock-'em'-sock-'em-Robots — if those toys had been six feet tall and carved from solid granite. It advanced rapidly, swinging its doubled-back, club-like arms.

Another appeared, and another, and another. AND another.


	4. Chapter 4

You give 'em a twist — a flick of the wrist —

"HELLLLPPP!!!" shrilled Eric, casting up his shield moments before a blow landed that would have pulverized him. As it was, there was a mighty CRACK! The cavalier was flung across the cave, and the arm of the vilstrak shattered, leaving a sharp-edged stump. The creature howled its unearthly moaning cry of rage. It hurled itself at the prone cavalier — who suddenly was not there anymore.

"D–d-daaahhhhh — Sheila!"

"Don't mention it, Eric," she said, repressing a smile.

In the meantime, Bobby had leapt forward. "YYYEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAHHH!" he whooped, and brought his club crashing down on the head of the prostrate tunnel thug. It crumbled into dust like a used charcoal briquette.

Another of the vilstraks now rushed furiously on Diana. Judging nicely, she wedged her staff into a crack in its stony body, and sent it crashing into the roof, pole vaulted by its own momentum. Its head splintered and it fell like –- well, like a stone.

"Two down, three to go!"

Hank fired directly into the face of one of the marl muggers. It roared in pain, and — yes, as he hoped — it swung blindly in all directions. It struck one of its fellows, and in moments they were pummeling each other to fragments.

The last of the thugs had Presto cornered. Already it was swinging back for its deadly punch, when the young wizard sang out:

"Read my lips! I do not stutter!

Turn from stone to fresh-churned butter!"

The effect of being hit by a six-foot pat of butter, though unpleasant, is generally non-lethal. The mugger splattered in greasy ruin all over the cave wall, and our heroes glowed like the buttered apples in a fruiterer's stall.


	5. Chapter 5

**That's what the showman said.**

"Greetings, Young Ones!" came a cheerful voice.

"Dungeon Master!" they chorused.

"Of Course!" moaned Eric, "He shows up after we've already dealt with the Garden Gnomes from Hell!"

"Why, Cavalier," smiled the Dungeon Master, "If you had taken my advice, you should not have had to deal with the marl muggers at all!"

"Yeah, Eric," shot Diana, "so shut your greasy face!"

"Myeahhh — myour myeasy myeaace….! Pfffnbbbbbt!"

"Well… but how are we supposed to find our way outta here now, Dungeon Master?" queried Bobby.

"Your way out lies inside, Barbarian!"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean," said the Dungeon Master gravely, tapping the boy on the chest, "inside of _you_ — in your heart. But beware, Young Ones … sometimes to give your heart is more painful than you can possibly imagine."

Eric whispered, "Do you suppose in his off time he writes the 'After School Specials'?" to Presto, who shrugged.

"But, Dungeon Master, what if — "

Just then, a rumbling came from the entrance of the cave. The boulder that sealed them in was beginning to be moved.

"It's the flind," said Hank, grimly, "they've come back to finish off what the vilstraks didn't. Dungeon Mast— oh — "

"Don't tell me," said Eric, head ostentatiously averted.

"He's gone again."

"I told you — "

"We know, we know," chorused the others, "You told us not to tell you."

"Well, now what'll we do?" asked Sheila.

"Hey, I've got it!" shouted Presto. "Dungeon Master said 'The way out is inside!' We've gotta go down _into_ the cave!"

"You're nuts! There're probably more of those rock monsters down there!"

"Have you got a better idea, Eric?"

"NOT FOR ANYTHING AM I GOING DOWN INTO THAT CAVE!"

The boulder at the entrance began to lurch back. Then Presto said, innocently, "Hey! I think the diamonds get bigger and bigger, the farther down you go…"

Eric stiffened — then: "Well, we can't just wait here — let's go down into the cave!" And he rushed down the dark path.

Hank grinned. "Way to go, Presto."

"Hank," said that boy knowingly, "there's more than one kind of magic words."


	6. Chapter 6

**I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts — **

"You know, Eric, you'd probably get along better if you dropped some of those jewels," Shelia remarked.

The Cavalier had tied his cape in front of him, napkin-wise, and was staggering under the weight of six or eight bowling-ball-sized gemstones, while he had crammed the spaces in between with sparkling brilliants until he looked like a Fabergé Golem. Even as he tottered, he kept scooping up handfuls of jewels to heap onto the glittering pyramid in his arms.

"Are you nuts?" he shot back. "Look, we know that they don't take American money in this stupid world — but they've gotta have some kind of currency, right? Well, you're lookin' at it." He fondled his precious burden, his eyes lit from below with a varicolored flame as the gleam of Hank's energy arrow was filtered through the depths of a green emerald or the profound blue of a sapphire. "Every single one of these is about a million Porterhouse steaks, a million ice cream sundaes — "

" — and one big Wiener," finished Diana.

"Ho, ho, ho. Well, if you feel that way about it, you don't have to eat my—"

"That's okay, Eric," Presto interrupted, hurriedly, "You can keep your jewels for yourself — I mean —"

"Hey, look!" Bobby exploded, pointing through a great Gothic portal formed by the arching cave-wall.

"Mwowww!" bleated Uni.

Just beyond a stony cliff ledge that formed the threshold of the cave entrance, A vaulted chamber lay spread out like a stage tableau before them; to the left, a stair was cunningly carven into the black basaltic rock of the mountain, while before and below them stood a gigantic graven idol of sard and carnelian, richly ornamented in gold, bull-headed, goggle-eyed, with gleaming horns and arms stretching forth clutching claws. Innumerable golden columns stood round it, surmounted by monstrous jewels; from many of these a lurid scarlet light pulsed throughout the lofty chamber, like the blinking lights on Beelzebub's Christmas tree, and a low, throbbing drumming filled the chamber, though the drummers appeared invisible. A circular dais or altar of bloodstone rose in steps before the grim idol, ringed by seven of the golden pillars, around which were piles of bejeweled weapons, and massy golden ornaments, and hoarded gems that made the jewels Eric carried look like so many peanuts. Shelled peanuts.

Crawling over the heaped treasures like huge, obscene crickets were swarms of the hideous vilstraks, while by each of the available exits stood the ramrod figures of the flind. They were trapped.

"It won't take long for those flind in the cave above us to figure out where we went off to," remarked Hank, grimly, "and then they'll head down the tunnel, probably in a group—so there is no way we can slip through."

"Yeah? Well, there's also no way we can stay here," whispered the Cavalier fiercely, "just waiting for 'em to come marching down and bag us, _and_ my diamonds, and sapphires, and rubies, either."

"Keep your emeralds on, Eric. We'll just have to figure a way to get past those guards and head up one of those tunnels."

"Yeah, but how are we supposed to get by those guys?"

"Myeahee, myowwww?"

"Maybe I could use my cloak… though what I would do then, I don't know. I don't suppose the old 'throw-the-pebble-past-the-bad-guy's-shoulder' trick would work on guys who live on piles of loose gems, would it?"

Hank grinned, ruefully. "'Fraid not, Sheila. Besides, there are too many of them — two or three could check out the noise, and still leave two behind to guard the exit. We need something bigger…"

"Hey, maybe my hat can help out."

"Presto, _that_ hat couldn't help if you hooked Spiderman, the U.S. Marines, a troop of Boy Scouts, and all the King's horses and all the King's men on to it."

"Aw, c'mon, Eric — just gimme a chance." He whipped the hat off, and chanted:

"Hat, we're trapped between bears and bugs —

Help us waltz right past those ugly thugs."

There was a minor ka-boom, and the Magician drew forth a gleaming spar of shining metal…

"Niiiiiiiiice work, Presto. A kazoo — _just_ what we needed."

"Hey, look out!"

From the shadows behind him the dour forms of the flind emerged silently, like panther ninjas; their leader laid a heavy paw on Presto's shoulder.

"Oh! Ah! Geez! Here, Happy Birthday!" yammered the young wizard, thrusting the instrument into the muzzle of the flind leader. A yowl burst from the others, and the chamber below exploded into activity, like nest of ground-dwelling wasps surging out when some unhappy sap has trodden on it.

"And here come his buddies, to blow out the candles!"


	7. Chapter 7

Every ball you throw will make me rich.

"Scatter!"

Hank's shout was answered by a deep, purring, buzzing kind of noise, a noise rising and falling in a regular, measured melody, something like a cross between a living hurdy-gurdy, a chorus of purring tigers, and the murmuring of a hive of giant bees. There was a strange, swaying, revolving throb in it, oddly entrancing, that somehow bypassed the brains and spoke directly to the muscles, compelling one with the single overmastering command: "Dance!"

Umm-de-dumm-de-dumm-de-dummm hummed the tune, and the young adventurers found themselves advancing and retreating, weaving and bobbing neatly through the ranks of whirling, capering monsters. The leader of the flind patrol was hopping from paw to paw, puffing and blowing at the enchanted kazoo as if it were a Zeppelin he was trying to inflate single-hand— er — single-_snout_edly.

"Prestohhhhh! What did you doooooo?"

"Gee, ah, I guess I guess I shouldn't have said 'waltzed'..."

"Hey, don't knock it — it's working!"

And so it was. Each change and counterchange of the revolving dance brought them closer to the father side of the chamber, to the tunnels leading up and out of the subterranean chamber. The flind, with eyes shut and limbs outstretched like a cat rolling in catnip, reeled about them wholly unconscious of their passage, and the grotesque vilstraks bobbed and bowed to each other in a sort of insectoid minuet.

"Ugh," shuddered Sheila, "it reminds me of a picture-book I had when I was little, _The Katydids' Ball. _Remember it, Bobby?"

"The one with all the bugs dressed up in old-fashioned clothes?"

"...and the little girl who shrank down to bug-size and danced with them. It used to give me nightmares."

"We've got more than nightmares to worry about right now."

"Aw, what's to worry about?" Eric smirked. They had arrived under the pinnacled arch, slipping neatly past an assortment of the bearcats performing a sort of cross between a game of hopscotch and one of patty-cake, oblivious to everything else. "If we can Watusi past a bunch of killer rock-bugs and homicidal teddy-bears, it's ten to one we can slip by Countess Tabitha up there. It's smooth sailing from here!"

"Don't say that!" Presto blanched.

"Whaaat?"

"Yeah," Bobby echoed, "haven't you ever seen the movies? Whenever somebody says, 'Nothing can stop us now!' or 'What could possibly go wrong?' or 'It's smooth sailing from here,' sumpin' horrible always happens!"

"Myeaah, myumpin' myorrimle!"

"The Countess is probably gonna walk in that door right now!" Presto gesticulated wildly.

And just at that moment… nothing happened. No-one entered; the passage showed empty as far up as they could see. Eric laughed curtly.

"Guys, this _isn't_ the movies. This isn't even a TV show. Besides, even if it was," continued the Cavalier, loftily, "it wouldn't matter anyways, because we'd be the Good Guys, and the Good Guys — always — win."

"How fortunate, then," remarked a voice, behind them, "that this is no — how do you call them? — "movie," or "TV show," or minstrel's tedious twice-told tale, where the heroes' deadliest foe comes in pat, just when they think themselves most safe!" On the edge of the dais there now stood a throne of crimson carnelian, and seated thereon, cruelly smiling, was the Countess Querella. The lurid light of the jeweled pillars painted the still revolving rings of her minions in black and fantastic patterns around her motionless form, the center of a woven wheel of shadow. Some cunning craft of the chamber carried her cold and silvery voice clearly to them. "Indeed, Cavalier, I also like my plot more deeply laid — and what good is a plot with no surprises?" She leaned forward. "You _are_ surprised, are you not?"

Bobby stepped forward stoutly, rapped his club against the ground, and growled, "Presto wasn't! He knew what was goin' on all along!"

"Myeahh!"

"Indeed? And what do you think of my play, Magician?"

"Well, uh — ," replied Presto, making rather an awkward job of removing his hat, "it's uh — I mean, it's very — "

"I'll tell you what _I_ think," interposed Diana, lengthening her staff. "I think it's just about time we rung down the curtain!"

"You are wrong, Acrobat!" retorted the Countess, rising and stretching her arms out. "The music has come to an end." A sharp _crrrack! _shot through the chamber, and the magical kazoo fell silent."Let the play begin!"


End file.
